Darren Fletcher dropped out of Scotland's squad with a knee problem and is a doubt to face his former club, while Eric Choupo-Moting suffered a hamstring injury with Cameroon and looks set to miss out.

BETTING & MATCH ODDS

GAME PREVIEW

The cliche goes that a league season is a marathon, not a sprint, but a quick start has been essential for Manchester United.

Psychologically, the Red Devils have set about establishing an aura of potential title winners and are already gathering a daunting head of steam.

They have quickly put to bed the problems they had in failing to turn control of games into goals and wins last season, with Romelu Lukaku swiftly getting off the mark.

And they have come through pre-season with most of their squad fit and firing, leaving their rivals to ponder the potential for them to get even better when Zlatan Ibrahimovic returns for the second half of the campaign.

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It feels reminiscent of Jose Mourinho's last championship-winning team at Chelsea, who won 14 of their first 18 games and then had the best defence in the division sit on the lead they had established.

Mourinho will hope there is more longevity in this United team: the way the Blues ground results out after Christmas was shown the following season to have been out of necessity rather than design.

But with core players such as David de Gea, Paul Pogba and Lukaku still only approaching their prime years, this time his troops appear to be built for more sustainable success.